Editors Picks

Q: It’s a rare opportunity to sit with someone like you and I’m trying to think of the best question. Is there a benefit in verbally asking a question and being answered?

John: Anything that is real is worth it.

Q: I’ve read your book ‘Unveiling Reality’ in which you speak of your awakening and later enlightenment. I think I’ve had awakening experiences, but I’d love to know the hallmarks of awakening and enlightenment.

John: Awakening is being able to see beingness, being able to drink in beingness, being able to distinguish between beingness and everything else...

Q: If I’m true in what my heart is wanting and desiring, it’s to have a child. It’s probably been six years since I’ve had a partner and I’m forty-four next month. I’m wondering whether to do it on my own, with insemination. I feel this strong desire and it’s been there for years. I would like any advice you have.

John: First, most deeply within, deep within your heart – deeply, gentled and quieted in your heart – there you have need of nothing...

Q: I remember you once speaking to me of the value of just one word and how far it could take me. Would you say more?

John: When you’re really listening and very gentled within, there will always be one word that represents what you are most learning, one word being birthed in you. Then, what is being birthed with that one word is the depth of its meaning. One word slowly turns into a whole universe.

There is a whole gestation period in realizing just one word, in you slowly turning into the meaning of one word...

Q: I love the truth of what I am beyond my preferences. I can see my inner face in yours and it’s like being in open sunshine. How can I open more to my shadows – those parts of me that I’ve separated from?

John: By seeing the shadows in others – not seeing such shadows with criticism or judgment, but tenderness seeing them. It is only tenderness that has the honesty to see. If someone else’s shadow can in any tiny little way find the same thing in your self, then the shadows of others, instead of being an attraction for irritation, judgment or criticism, are for you a love reflector...

John: It is the most wonderful, life-giving and healing energy in the universe. It cannot comprehend frustration. It cannot be bothered or bugged. It cannot be frustrated, because love is not frustration. It cannot be provoked to be anything other than love. It doesn’t try to be itself: it cannot be anything other than itself. It is kindness and tenderness without thought, without willfulness. It does not self-reflect. It does not consider itself. It doesn’t think: it doesn’t need to think; it already is...

Q: I have this question about innocence. All those things that we do to our selves and to other people … do they leave marks? Do they go away?John: Never. Did you see the movie ‘The Gladiator’? What he said is true: that everything that you do now echoes through eternity. Q: So you just let it echo?John: That’s acceptance...

Q: Sexuality has been a challenge for me my whole life. You have spoken about the fire of sexuality. I know a little of that, but for many years it hasn’t felt like that at all. I’ve experienced reduced potency and this has created disturbances in relationship. Now there is almost no sexuality in my life and I’ve enjoyed not having to worry about it. I don’t feel inclined to be sexual with anyone else, but without moving it in my life, how can I continue to go deeper?..

Q: For some time now I’ve experienced strong bipolar episodes. I don’t want to be a victim and I do accept responsibility, but their impact is so intense and they throw me so far from my self, I feel that I don’t have my independence anymore. There’s a relentless inevitability and I wonder what to do about it.

John: You suffer from what, in a tropical climate, is called hurricane season.

The seasons that you pass through don’t stop you from being what you first are...

Q: I feel so much pain in my heart. Can you speak of how to experience forgiveness?

John: By never, ever being hard on your self again.

Q: How do you do that?

John: By never judging yourself based on anything that you’ve ever learned, never judging yourself based on anything that you’ve ever believed; by letting your whole heart be totally naked, and letting it stay naked.

Quote: Everything that you would learn in your next relationship, pour into this one.

Q: I’ve been in love with my husband for many years and we have two children. For a few months I’ve been in a deep connection and love with another man, and this love feels so deep, peaceful, and easy. I’m seeing how my ability to be in love depends on the qualities in another and wonder if I’m evolved enough to be with someone who’s closed and distant...

Quote: You are alive to give space in your heart for the tiniest little sparkle of love to get a little bit bigger.

Q1: What happens when we die?

John: When you die, every moment in your life where you’ve known a touch of magicalness within that you’ve not understood – that made no sense to you from anything outside of your self, but the touch of it was magical and completely nurturing – all of those touches come together and you’ll be all of those touches, all put together … and way, way more of the same...